LMDE: Screen sluggish when scrolling LibreOffice, Caja.

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baronsamedi

LMDE: Screen sluggish when scrolling LibreOffice, Caja.

Post by baronsamedi »

LibreOffice is acting very slow, with the pages moving "in waves" when scrolling (much more noticeable when scrolling up). I thought at first it was something bloating the software, but a similar (although but not quite as bad) effect can be seen with Caja. So my hypothesis now is that it's got something to do with the grafics chipset / driver. Follows the relevant (I think) section of the output for

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lspci -vv:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
	Subsystem: Dell Device 0126
	Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
	Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
	Latency: 0
	Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16
	Region 0: Memory at e8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
	Region 1: Memory at ff680000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
	Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: i915
My searches make me think that the 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset is supported by default and there is not much to do about it. Please advice on what might be the problem and how to tackle it.

Thanks.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
lizbeth

Re: LMDE: LIbreOffice sluggish when scrolling.

Post by lizbeth »

You are using an external mouse? Replace the battery.
baronsamedi

Re: LMDE: LIbreOffice sluggish when scrolling.

Post by baronsamedi »

lizbeth wrote:You are using an external mouse? Replace the battery.
No, I am with a quite old desktop and a regular cord mouse, so there are no batteries involved.

I have just done the experiment to run the Maya liveCD, to see what happens, and voilà there seems to be no problem there. The lspci -vv command gets exactly the same output in the VGA controller part I excerpted, with just one extra line at the end:

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	Kernel modules: intelfb, i915
So should I assume that somehow LMDE failed to install those modules? How do I get around to installing them? I am way out of my depth here.

Thanks.
lizbeth

Re: LMDE: LIbreOffice sluggish when scrolling.

Post by lizbeth »

The kernel module should have installed by default. Open synaptic and in the search box type in i915 and the xorg driver should appear and have a green box next to it. If not double click it and install it.
baronsamedi

Re: LMDE: LIbreOffice sluggish when scrolling.

Post by baronsamedi »

lizbeth wrote:The kernel module should have installed by default. Open synaptic and in the search box type in i915 and the xorg driver should appear and have a green box next to it. If not double click it and install it.
The i915 is installed indeed, but the intelfb thing is nowhere to be found.
lizbeth

Re: LMDE: LIbreOffice sluggish when scrolling.

Post by lizbeth »

I'm researching it. open synaptic in type in fbdev for now
lizbeth

Re: LMDE: LIbreOffice sluggish when scrolling.

Post by lizbeth »

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 49#p459351

I started a topic in the debian forums to research your issue. The debian forums seem to get more traffic. Head on over there and see what's been posted to see what might help you more.

I am at a loss. I have researched for hours this intelfb module and have come up blank.
baronsamedi

Re: LMDE: LIbreOffice sluggish when scrolling.

Post by baronsamedi »

lizbeth wrote:http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 9#p459351I have researched for hours this intelfb module and have come up blank.
Thanks. I stayed up late yesterday doing some careful experimenting with my box to see how the beast behaves, and it is weirdly random: the slowness affects LibreOffice and Caja en Evince, but apparently not Firefox, for instance. Also sometimes the slowness is there right from the switch-on of the computer, but other times the thing goes smoothly at the beginning, maybe even for hours, until somehow the machine decides it is time to play the joke. It is really maddening.
lizbeth

Re: LMDE: LIbreOffice sluggish when scrolling.

Post by lizbeth »

Do you have a dedicated swap file set up and how big if so?
baronsamedi

Re: LMDE: LIbreOffice sluggish when scrolling.

Post by baronsamedi »

lizbeth wrote:Do you have a dedicated swap file set up and how big if so?
It is a quite old machine, with just 1Gb RAM. The swap partition is rather big: 4Gb.

But I don't think it has to do with RAM or swap. Maybe the graphics card? I even thought it might be some kind of interference with the printer, which has been driving me nuts for a while too, but that seems identified and gone for now.

And my nerd cred with my GF (it is her box) at at a historical minimum... I am really desperate :wink:
DrHu

Re: LMDE: LIbreOffice sluggish when scrolling.

Post by DrHu »

For LibreOffice just like OpenOffice before, allocating more RAM to that application will help it run faster; unfortunately you have only 1GB of system RAM, so you are fairly limited in what you can assign to open applications

The second thing you might attend to is how much multitasking are you doping ; that is what is you operational style
  • Do you
  • Have anything like conky running all the time showing various system stats, eg hard drive ram use etc..
  • Are you opening many internet browser tabs while running your local application: LibreOffice..
  • Do you have many screen effects, compiz or other animations or screen savers or large wallpaper backgrounds
    --for performance, the best is usually a simple theme : solid color background no animated or sound effects and so on, even if your graphics card can handle it, since the OS performance also depends both on the processor and the RAM of the system
  • You might want to check your paging file to see if, while the system is slowed your are paging from RAM to hard drive (swap partition)
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8178
--or run a utility such as top or htop for a more graphical display of such stats..

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... page3.html
--post #35, you may want to assign the max amount of RAM allowable to the graphics processor (according to the poster 8MB)
  • It is a good habit to check the BIOS of any machine you use and its settings, specifically for hard drives, RAM, Graphics, network, boot order and any devices you don't use, such as floppy access (being enabled) and so on..
baronsamedi

Re: LMDE: LIbreOffice sluggish when scrolling.

Post by baronsamedi »

DrHu wrote:unfortunately you have only 1GB of system RAM, so you are fairly limited in what you can assign to open applications
The thing is that the machine has been working perfectly for quite a long time with Mint 7 (I think it was). I only have two RAM slots so yes, expanding it might be tricky.
DrHu wrote:The second thing you might attend to is how much multitasking are you doping ; that is what is you operational style
The box is stripped to a minimum: Mate, no flashy effects... the user (not me) is pretty no-nonsense: she only wants the job done when she gets on the keyboard, and and worry and spend at the computer as little time as possible, so this thing is pissing her off. Her working style is pretty straightward and has besides it has not changed from before to after this problem showed up.

I just assigned 8Mb to the graphics processor in the BIOS (it was at 1 Mb indeed) but no change.
lizbeth

Re: LMDE: LIbreOffice sluggish when scrolling.

Post by lizbeth »

I am of the mind that this is either something very simple that is being overlooked or hardware failure.

Care to give machine specs
baronsamedi

Re: LMDE: Screen sluggish when scrolling LibreOffice, Caja

Post by baronsamedi »

lizbeth wrote:I am of the mind that this is either something very simple that is being overlooked or hardware failure.
Care to give machine specs
A excerpt from #lshw:

(...)
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.00GHz
Memory: 1Gb
VGA compatible controller
product: 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
resources: irq:16 memory:e8000000-efffffff memory:ff680000-ff6fffff
Multimedia video controller
product: Bt878 Video Capture
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: vpd pm bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=bttv latency=64 maxlatency=40 mingnt=16
resources: irq:18 memory:f80ff000-f80fffff
(...)

Hope this is what you want. Sorry for the delay... lots of travel and stuff.
lizbeth

Re: LMDE: Screen sluggish when scrolling LibreOffice, Caja.

Post by lizbeth »

you left out the hard drive and how it is configured....
lizbeth

Re: LMDE: Screen sluggish when scrolling LibreOffice, Caja.

Post by lizbeth »

also run

sudo apt-get autoclean

after that it's time to test the memory and the hard drive for errors
baronsamedi

Re: LMDE: Screen sluggish when scrolling LibreOffice, Caja.

Post by baronsamedi »

lizbeth wrote:you left out the hard drive and how it is configured....
Sorry about that. Here is what I can see in #lshw about the CPU and Hard disk:

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computer                  
    description: Mini Tower Computer
    width: 32 bits
    capabilities: smbios-2.3 dmi-2.3 smp-1.4 smp
    configuration: administrator_password=enabled boot=normal chassis=mini-tower cpus=1 power-on_password=enabled uuid=[REMOVED]
  *-core
       description: Motherboard
       vendor: Dell Computer Corp.
       physical id: 0
       serial: [REMOVED]
     *-firmware
          description: BIOS
          vendor: Dell Computer Corporation
          physical id: 0
          version: A09
          date: 11/01/2004
          size: 64KiB
          capacity: 448KiB
          capabilities: isa pci pnp apm upgrade shadowing escd cdboot bootselect edd int13floppytoshiba int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial int17printer acpi usb agp ls120boot biosbootspecification netboot
     *-cpu
          description: CPU
          product: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.00GHz
          vendor: Intel Corp.
          physical id: 400
          bus info: cpu@0
          version: 15.2.7
          slot: Microprocessor
          size: 2GHz
          capacity: 3060MHz
          width: 32 bits
          clock: 400MHz
          capabilities: boot fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe pebs bts cid xtpr
          configuration: id=0
        *-cache:0
             description: L1 cache
             physical id: 700
             size: 8KiB
             capacity: 16KiB
             capabilities: internal write-back data
        *-cache:1
             description: L2 cache
             physical id: 701
             size: 512KiB
             capacity: 512KiB
             capabilities: internal varies unified
     *-memory
          description: System Memory
          physical id: 1000
          slot: System board or motherboard
          size: 1GiB
          capacity: 1GiB
        *-bank:0
             description: DIMM SDRAM Synchronous 266 MHz (3,8 ns)
             physical id: 0
             slot: DIMM_A
             size: 512MiB
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 266MHz (3.8ns)
        *-bank:1
             description: DIMM SDRAM Synchronous 266 MHz (3,8 ns)
             physical id: 1
             slot: DIMM_B
             size: 512MiB
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 266MHz (3.8ns)
baronsamedi

Re: LMDE: Screen sluggish when scrolling LibreOffice, Caja.

Post by baronsamedi »

Well, Nadia came along, and apparently took the problem away. Not strictly "solved", buy hey. Now dealing with a new set of small details, but none of them maddening so far.
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Re: LMDE: Screen sluggish when scrolling LibreOffice, Caja.

Post by darethehair »

Hmmm...I am using Cinnamon 1.6 with LMDE and just noticed the same extremely sluggish scrolling with a LibreOffice 'writer' document myself. I have lots of memory (4gb).

My 'lspci' entry also lacks any reference to 'intelfb':

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00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 0250
	Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
	Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
	Latency: 0
	Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 44
	Region 0: Memory at fe400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
	Region 2: Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
	Region 4: I/O ports at dc00 [size=8]
	Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: i915

Since I run LMDE, 'Nadia' is not going to come to my rescue :)
There is nothing more dangerous than a bored cat.
Jenia

Re: LMDE: Screen sluggish when scrolling LibreOffice, Caja.

Post by Jenia »

I have the exact same problem, but I was certain it was a result of messing with sid repos!
I've got a 32 bit system and all of the ram such a system can handle...

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00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 12)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor PCI Express x16 Root Port (rev 12)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 06)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 06)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 06)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev 06)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev 06)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 06)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev a6)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 5 Series Chipset LPC Interface Controller (rev 06)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset 4 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 06)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset SMBus Controller (rev 06)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [GeForce 310M] (rev a2)
02:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
03:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
07:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Yukon Optima 88E8059 [PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Controller with AVB] (rev 11)
ff:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture Generic Non-core Registers (rev 02)
ff:00.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture System Address Decoder (rev 02)
ff:02.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Link 0 (rev 02)
ff:02.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Physical 0 (rev 02)
ff:02.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)
ff:02.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)
It's one of the reasons I can't wait for a respin - I want to clean my system and start from scratch, hoping the issue will be gone.
(Also the nvidia driver pretends to be RandR incompatible on this laptop for some reason)
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